Speeding Progress Against Obesity Crisis: IOM Report Release May 8

Released: 4/30/2012

The surge in America’s obesity rates demands faster progress to stop and reverse these trends. Accelerating Progress on Obesity Prevention: Solving the Weight of the Nation, the Institute of Medicine’s latest report on combating the obesity epidemic, focuses on strategies that various sectors of society can take to support individuals' and families' efforts to achieve healthy diets and physical activity levels. The report will be released at 8:30 a.m. EDT Tuesday, May 8, with a plenary session and press briefing at the “Weight of the Nation” conference hosted by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The plenary and briefing will be held at the Omni Shoreham Hotel, 2500 Calvert St., N.W., Washington, D.C. Reporters who cannot attend may watch a live video webcast of the plenary session from 8:30 a.m. to 9:30 a.m. EDT via a link at www.adph.org/alphtn or dial in to listen: 888-557-8511 (enter access code 972-1530# then # again). Offsite reporters may participate in the press briefing from 9:30 a.m. to 10:30 a.m. through a telephone dial-in: 312-470-7277 (the verbal passcode is “obesity progress”).

Embargoed copies of the report will be available to reporters only beginning at 9 a.m. EDT Monday, May 7. Reporters may obtain a copy or arrange interviews with members of the authoring committee by contacting the National Academies’ Office of News and Public Information, tel. 202-334-2138 or e-mail news@nas.edu. Additional information on the study is available at http://www.iom.edu/AcceleratingObesityPrevention and information on the conference is available at http://www.weightofthenation.org.